


Everything is My Fault

by Tardis_Witch



Series: Marvel One-shots and Drabbles [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 10:50:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7529812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tardis_Witch/pseuds/Tardis_Witch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy is fraught with guilt after the events of 3x22</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything is My Fault

Daisy had been tossing and turning all night, waking up sporadically and existing in the strange realm between consciousness and dreams. She ached everywhere, physically and mentally and emotionally. Her half asleep dreams were rife with fear, cross necklaces, and the sound of silent static. Eventually, Daisy couldn’t take anymore. She stumbled out of her tangled, sweaty sheets and out to the hallway.

She didn't stop to take a breath of the less-confined air, turning immediately and hurrying sleepily in a direction that her subconscious said held comfort.

It wasn't until she pushed open the door that she realized where her feet had taken her.

She almost didn't dare cross the threshold, but after a moment she stumbled inside and threw herself face-down on the bed, tears that she thought she'd used up pouring down her cheeks.

A few minutes passed, and Daisy's tears eventually subsided into tiny sobs. She hugged a pillow to her chest and rolled to her side, curled up in the fetal position. She heard the pad of bare feet outside the door, and then someone knocked softly.

"Daisy?" Jemma's concerned voice asked and she peeked her head inside, seeing Daisy bury her face in the pillow she was clutching. Jemma didn't say anything, she just walked in and sat down beside her, resting a comforting hand on her back.

Daisy almost wished she had just walked away. That small bit of human contact reopened the floodgates in her eyes and the small control she had gained was washed away. "I just - " she sobbed, trying to find some words to convey the sharp empty pain inside her, to explain why she felt so utterly alone. "I just - I just can't believe he's gone," she muttered. The words felt cliché and inaccurate, but it was all she could think.

"I know," Jemma whispered, gently guiding Daisy into a sitting position so that she could wrap her arms around her. "I know," she repeated, tightening her hug.

Eventually Daisy's breathing evened and Jemma let go of her, looking down at their bare feet dangling as they sat on the edge of a bed that would never be Lincoln's again.

"It doesn't even smell like him anymore," Daisy laughed shakily and picked up the pillow. "When I realized I was here a part of me thought, 'maybe I can catch his scent one more time'" she shrugged, feeling silly and juvenile, "but no - " her voice caught, "I mean he spent so much of the last few weeks in quarantine, he hasn't even been in here for - "

Jemma laid a hand on Daisy's arm, stopping her before her sobs returned. Daisy swallowed and lay the pillow on her knees.

"I feel like such a terrible person," Daisy said, shaking her head.

"Daisy, anything you said or did while under Hive's - " Jemma began kindly

"No, not that." Daisy cut her off sharply. She still felt terrible about those things, she probably would always feel terrible about them, no matter how many times people told her it wasn't her fault. But that wasn't what was eating her up inside at that precise moment. "It's -" she faltered. Did she really want to say it? "It's something Lincoln said. We were talking about …. Hive-" she wouldn't tell Jemma about trying to go back to him, she couldn't, "and Lincoln said he understood how I felt. Understood what it was like 'to be so addicted to something, you'd do anything to get _her_ back'"

She waited a minute for that to sink in, and she watched the understanding dawn in Jemma's eyes before continuing. "Of course at first I thought he was talking about his alcoholism, and then I thought I must have misheard him, but - He said _her_. And he meant me." She felt bitterness and self loathing creeping into her voice and she didn't try to stop it. "All this time, he's been my safe place, my comfort, my escape, and I was another addiction for him to struggle with, as if his life hadn't been hard enough. "

"You can't blame yourself for that," Jemma said kindly. "He needed you."

Daisy shook her head, "No, he needed someone, sure. But out of all the people he could've picked - people with non-stressful lives, people who would've put him first, people who would've noticed how much he was struggling - he got stuck with me. Selfish, blind, me, who never even told him that I loved him," Hot, angry tears began welling in her eyes. Man, she was tired of crying.

"Daisy," Jemma said, half comforting, half reprimanding, "you are far from selfish. And I'm sure he knew how you felt."

"I still should've said it. And if I wasn't so selfish, I wouldn't have dragged him into this insanity in the first place."

Jemma sighed, "Daisy you brought him to SHIELD because he was being hunted, and he would be safe here."

Daisy scoffed at her former self, for thinking that SHIELD could ever be considered a "safe" place for anything. "At the very least I should have sent him home with Joey and Elena. So he could have time to figure things out. To figure himself out," she added, thinking of another thing he'd said that day. "He said he needed that, that we both needed to figure ourselves out, before we could think about us." But they'd run out of time. Lincoln had never gotten the chance to fully piece himself back together, and now she might never be able to do that. She felt so broken, in so many ways.

After a moment of silence, Jemma said, "He was right about that. When you left, it was like you were all that was holding him together. After everything he'd lost - he just started falling apart." Daisy nodded, angry at herself. "But it wasn't your fault," Jemma added hastily. "Without you he would've only fallen apart sooner."

Daisy shook her head, but she didn't say anything to contradict Jemma. She'd learned that no matter what she did, everyone here at SHIELD would assure her of her innocence, and no matter what they said, she would still feel guilty for all of it, so there was no point adding this matter to the never ending cycle.

"I think I just need some sleep," she said, looking up at the ceiling.

Jemma nodded and stood, "That sounds like a good idea."

They walked in silence back to Daisy's room and bid each other good night. Jemma left quietly, and Daisy lay on top of her covers and stared at her ceiling, glaring at the world. Why did anyone let her into their lives? Perhaps all of her foster parents had been smart, to send her away before getting too attached. Terrible things seemed to happen around her. Trip died, Lash died, her dad had been driven insane just trying to find her, and now Lincoln was gone. All for her. And she couldn't help but think that SHIELD's current stance on Inhumans would be drastically different if she hadn't been so close to Coulson. Then again, if she had never joined SHIELD, perhaps they never would've discovered the Inhumans and Afterlife would still be functioning, and Lincoln would still be happy. And there would've been no outbreak, and Joey and Elena wouldn't have had to uproot their lives, Andrew would have stayed Andrew, and the countless people who had died in the insanity would still be alive.

Of course, there was a chance that it all could've happened anyway, but at that moment Daisy was content to lay the blame at her feet. All of the blame for anything that had gone wrong in the past 3 years. It was all her fault.

She shouldn't be here, imposing herself on these amazing people. They all deserved so much better than they had, and she didn't belong here anymore. She wasn't a SHIELD agent anymore, not after everything she'd done, and her Secret Warriors had failed. She needed to leave. They should all hate her by now anyway.

There was a knock on her door. She stood and opened the door, expecting to find Jemma, but instead it was Fitz' somber face and sleep-mussed hair that greeted her. He said nothing, just wrapped his arms around her and held her for a moment. Then he stepped aside and she saw that Jemma was behind him, holding a tray of tea.

She smiled and stepped aside, letting them enter the room. She took her mug with a shaky hand and sat down on her bed, where Jemma joined her, Fitz pulling up the chair from her desk to sit across from them.

It wasn't much. It was just tea, but it was tea from Fitzsimmons in the middle of the night, a night where everything was wrong with the world. Somehow, that small gesture meant so much at that moment. As Daisy took a sip from her cup and looked at two of the best friends she'd ever had, she thought, _not yet. Maybe I won't leave just yet._


End file.
